


the devil had done for the rest

by beckawrites



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies), The Isle of the Lost Series - Melissa de la Cruz
Genre: Gen, abuse - while not graphic - is mentioned a handful of times, because it's the isle and parents on the isle are terrible. period., mentions of mal (super brief), mentions of uma & harry/uma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 03:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12522100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckawrites/pseuds/beckawrites
Summary: the sea be ours, and by the powers, where we will, we'll roam(or: harriet is a big sister, and a pirate, and these are both full time jobs that stopped correlating much sooner than she would have liked.)





	the devil had done for the rest

**Author's Note:**

> i have...a lot of feelings about harriet hook. and i choose to ignore the existence of the wicked world cartoon in general, so harry only has one sister. title: robert louis stevenson, fifteen men on a dead man's chest; summary: hans zimmer, hoist the colors

Harriet was barely a year old when her younger brother was born. She didn’t remember a life where she wasn’t a big sister; a life where she wasn’t doing her best to protect Harry, make Harry happy, keep Harry safe from…well, everything. The goblins, the older kids, the kids his own age, the animals that roamed the streets of the Isle without care, their own father. All of it was dangerous, and Harry was soft and small and had a smile that lit up rooms but never drove anyone away (sometimes, she thought that maybe Harry was made for more than this, for a place with a wide-open sea and somewhere his smiles would actually be appreciated, not taught to be turned into scowls). Harriet Hook didn’t remember a life where she wasn’t both a big sister, and doing her best to be the worst pirate in history.

x

Harry was family. Harry was her own blood, half-brother or not he was more important than any crew, any first mate, any alliance she could ever dream to make. She would sooner give up her own life than let his be taken from him. Family loyalty meant everything on the Isle, because family was all you had: the kids were loyal to their parents, to their siblings, cousins if they had any. Those were the only loyalties that went without question. Blood was thicker than water, after all, and if there was one thing the Isle never lacked in, it was blood.

It was, however, lacking in decent supplies.

She had gotten into fights with goblins before, but today was especially stupid, especially useless. All she wanted was eyeliner, something that wasn’t mostly empty or a little bottle that meant she needed to use her fingers. It didn’t seem like too much to ask for, and yet, there she was, arguing about the trade with two idiot goblins that barely spoke English, all because the idiot Evil Queen wanted what Harriet held in her hand. It wasn’t even for her, but she wasn’t about to tell the goblins that.  


“If the Queen wants it so bad, she can take it from me herself.” It wasn’t often Harriet had to stand so straight and tall, make herself bigger than she was. She was a pirate captain, had one of the most feared crews on the Isle, short of Mal and her little group. The goblins in the wharf hardly questioned her, but she guessed that the royalty was higher up in the ranks. Or she paid better. “You give me the stupid makeup, or I’ll take the whole wharf from you,” she threatened, teeth bared. The goblins were barely bigger than she was, and she had a whole crew behind her at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t hard to tell who would win this fight, though her hand was on her sword anyway, just in case.

The way the goblin gulped, shrank, practically ran with his tail between his legs, made Harriet smirk. Pirates would win over royalty every time.

x

She left the makeup in Harry’s cabin, didn’t say a word about it. They didn’t give gifts on the Isle, not even to family. Gifts were always booby trapped, bombs in pretty boxes and apples dipped in poison, dolls that were cursed and amulets that could hypnotize. If anyone knew that she had gone to the wharf to get eyeliner for her brother, just to make him smile, just because she knew it was something that made him happy, well. Harriet had a reputation to uphold, she couldn’t have it tarnished by a good deed, even if it was for her younger brother.

It didn’t stop her from helping him put it on, though.

x

There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in her when she stood in front of him, a barrier between their father’s drunken madness, his hook, and her brother’s safety. There never had been. She had been standing between them for as long as she could remember, protecting him. It was second nature, the same way lying and stealing and punch-first-ask-questions-later were. Protect Harry, that was her first instinct; make sure her father never laid hand or hook on him, even if it meant taking the brunt of his fury. She was the oldest, she was the girl, nothing that she did would ever be good enough, so Harriet had been taking the sharp edge of the hook and the rough cut of his knuckles for as long as she could remember, anyway. There was never any regret, either – not when she was wearing long sleeves to hide bruises in the summertime, not when she was using a sword like a cane to hide a limp, never. As much as Harriet knew that no amount of this ‘heroism’ (except, was it really being a hero when you were fighting and dying for your own family?) would grant her any kind of salvation, there was never any doubt that Harry came first. Harry always came first.

x

Uma was someone that showed no mercy, and Harriet would be lying if she said she was surprised by it. That girl had never been shown an ounce of mercy in her life, no child of this godforsaken rock had, and so they had none to give.

That didn’t mean Harriet wasn’t furious when she found out that Uma had cheated her way into one of the family pirate ships. Least of all the one that was supposed to be Harry’s. Harriet was, in true pirate fashion, ready for vengeance, for retribution, for –

She was _not_ ready for the way Harry looked at Uma when the sea-witch was wearing a captain’s hat. She was _not_ ready for hearing Harry say aye, aye, to a captain that was not his big sister. She was _not_ ready for realizing that Harry was only okay with being first mate because it was to Uma. She was _not_ ready to see her brother in love.

It wasn’t even because she was unhappy for him, or because she disliked Uma – neither of those things were true. Harriet was, in true big sister fashion, overjoyed that someone made her brother so happy, and especially that it was Uma, someone Harriet…well. She didn’t trust the shrimp as far as she could throw her, but in any case, Uma wasn’t the worst person Harry could end up with. Harriet was worried for him, that was all.

Love was not meant for the Isle of the Lost. Or maybe this sad hunk of land wasn’t meant for love. Either way, it was a weakness; love meant trust, and trust meant giving someone an opportunity to stab you in the back. No one was ever supposed to have that kind of weakness, give up that kind of power. The Isle could chew Harry up and spit him out if it wanted to, if it was given the chance. It tried to do that with everyone, and fighting it off was nearly impossible when love was softening your heart, giving someone the absolute power to destroy you.

Harriet would know, it was ripping her from the inside out.

x

The more time Harry spent with Uma, the more time Harriet spent with the boy from the mountains. Harry knew, of course he knew, because even though they went to different schools and spent so much time apart, he was still her brother. She still told him…not everything, but enough. She still protected him every moment she was able, even if it meant coming into the mountain hideout with more wounds than she could explain away in a gang brawl. Harry was always worth it, that was the truth: if anyone was worth risking her safety for, it was Harry.

The boy from the mountain, however, was certainly working his way up the ranks of importance, and she couldn’t tell if their alliance had gone terribly wrong or terribly right. They would do anything for each other, because that was all they knew: all or nothing, give an inch but take their mile; take their money take their food take their heart, snatch it from right under their nose and hold it in just out of reach. Never return it.

(They did not handle things with care on the Isle. Hearts were not cradled in shaking hands. They were not handed over, gifts of trust and pleas for mercy all at once. No, that was not how things were supposed to go.)

x

(That was exactly how it went when Harriet fell in love.)

x

“You fucking destroyed the ship,” Harriet said, looking up at the battered wooden lady. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t disappointed. The _Lost Revenge_ was nothing special, as far as ships went. Harriet’s own ship had seen better days – though, most of the things in this place had, so she supposed that was neither here nor there.

Harry hummed beside her, nodding. “Aye.” He didn’t talk to her like she was his captain. He hadn’t for a long time. Now, she was just his sister, a fellow pirate trying to make the best of the little they sea they had. “Beyond repair?”

She smiled. “Nah. We’re used to working with scraps, remember? She’ll be fine. Now, tell me again, everything that happened. And one day, you’re going to take me to this island. Promise?”

They locked pinkies, the way they used to do when they were younger. Her father always told her that the Hooks were a family of their word. Promises on the isle weren’t worth a damn thing, but a Hook was nothing if they couldn’t keep their word.

(Harriet never did get to see the little island where the treasure was.)

x

The Isle of the Lost was a nation divided. Harriet, her crew, they got Mal’s old territory. Not because Mal left it for her, but because she was the first to seize it, snatch it from under everyone’s noses (which did, in fact, involve breaking a few – those Gaston twins always tried to bite off more than they could chew) and claim it for herself. It wasn’t as if Mal herself was coming back to take it over, not when she had all of Auradon at her fingertips.

(Sometimes, Harriet found herself awake at night, a bruise on her cheek and an ache in her stomach, wondering if she would give it all up, too. If she would leave and never return, stay in the place where everyone expected the worst of her and made it so easy to deliver, where she would have no power, where she didn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder when she was out at night, where she could say the word ‘love’ without having to pull venom from fangs she didn’t think she had anymore.)

Uma, her crew, Harry, they took over the part of the Isle that Harriet used to have; the part that she used to call home, and still did, on some nights, when she missed her brother the way one misses a limb, a phantom pain, a memory of something that once was. If there was anything to ever get her to pity her father, even for a brief moment, it was the way he talked about missing his right hand. Sometimes, Harriet would look down and wiggle her fingers, make a fist, a physical reminder that her pain was something else, something deeper.

She hardly ever saw her brother anymore. Territory claims were difficult to keep if she wasn’t vigilant, even with a crew her size and the alliance with the Huns. She could never afford to leave anything to chance, even though she was tossing her relationship with her favorite person in the world up in the air, hoping he would understand. He was a pirate, too, after all.

x

Mal came back.

x

Harriet knew she wouldn’t be able to talk Harry out of Uma’s plan if she tried.

She tried anyway.

The first time they’d spoken in months was a shouting match.

x

Harriet had a panic attack in the mountain hideout that night, curled up in the arms of the boy whose home, whose bed, whose time whose space whose heart (though she didn’t know that part, not yet) she had invaded, carved out a space for herself like she belonged there and he never told her she didn’t. He brought her back to earth and made sure she stayed there.

It wasn’t exactly fair, that Harry wanted her to be Harriet Hook sometimes and other times he only wanted her to be Harriet. Sometimes, she couldn’t tell which time was when.

During the fight, she was Harriet, the big sister, worried about their plan, worried about her brother. Apparently, he didn’t want a big sister, he wanted a pirate, he wanted Harriet Hook, someone to tell him to be fierce and devilish and to take what he could and give nothing back; someone to make the plan perfect, help him be a perfect first mate. Or maybe that was he wanted from his big sister. Either way, that wasn’t what he got and Harriet didn’t think, in all her life, in all her years of being who she was (an older sister, a pirate, a protector), that she would feel so disconnected from the person she was supposed to be closest to.

She thought, for what felt like the millionth time, of Mal, of Auradon, of a safety that was only guaranteed if good behavior was, too. She thought of what she would do if given the chance to go, if she would leave the Isle, her crew, the boy from the mountains that had become her heart, if she would leave behind Harry. Was there any amount of safety and comfort that was worth that?

x

The weeks of silence carved a hole in Harriet’s chest. This was different. He was deliberately not speaking to her. The boy from the mountains was always quiet, but she knew that her ache was making him ache. They took it out on storeowners and freshmen.

The Isle was getting smaller. Invitations from the king were coming in more and more often, children abandoning parents that had no right to feel betrayed in the slightest. Harriet still didn’t know what she would do when her invitation came, if it ever would. Maybe the king was done inviting over pirates, sea witches, the whole lot of the ocean dwellers. Maybe Auradon had no place for magic and the recklessness that only dreaming of riding with the tide brought into one’s heart. Maybe Harriet would never get an answer to the questions she asked herself late at night, nursing bruises from her father, because even if she and Harry weren’t speaking, protecting him was her baseline, her instinct, the only thing she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was good at. Maybe Auradon was a treasure that she would never get to hold.

x

When her invitation to Auradon came, signed in the king’s own hand, she clutched the boy from the mountains like the anchor that held her ship at bay, and didn’t even have time to tell Harry goodbye.


End file.
